Marketing has evolved rapidly in the last few years to try to keep up with the digital world. One sign of this has been recent calls for a change from Chief Marketing Officer roles to becoming Chief Marketing Technologists.
On the whole that’s a good thing – the role of technology in marketing has changed massively, whether it’s in product/service creation, communication or delivery. But there’s a traditional marketing skill which might get overlooked in an over-reliance on technology and data.
These three pillars are part of all great marketing work and people, at both a strategic and tactical level, and underpin everything TheWayoftheWeb are working on. And they’re essential regardless of personal specialisation, cutting across direct marketing, SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing to name but a few. Those silos will continue to merge until all you really want will be highly effective marketers – or, if you need a job title, a ‘Creative Marketing Technologist’
Creativity:
Creativity is an essential part of marketing, and will only rise in importance due to the global competition for attention and the increase in social signals in areas such as search optimisation.
Although far too many people wrongly see marketing as an advertising function, it should be integral in creating any product or service, and this is where creativity can pay huge dividends in producing something which is sharable and spreadable. It’s where research and behaviour data can go from numbers to a tangible advantage by being used creatively and produce something which markets itself to some extent.
This isn’t a new idea – creativity has been a part of great marketing for a long time, but it’s often overlooked. Particularly when a large part of the creative process is general outsourced to designers and creatives in other departments, or at agencies. But without an awareness of how to create something, how can anyone in marketing be in a position to judge the good from the crap?
Personally my creative history is in the written word, having produced thousands of articles for national publications, websites and even 1300+ posts here over the years. It’s something that’s as much a part of what I do as eating and sleeping, and continuing to work as a journalist and writer means I’m in a reasonable position to judge the quality of marketing texts.
But that’s why I’m constantly trying to improve my understanding of visual creativity by reading the best design blogs and websites (e.g. 37Signals), reading great books on design (e.g Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition), and studying what photographers, artists and designers do when I get the chance to work directly with them.
The need to voraciously read as much as possible, from the adverts on the London Underground to a range of blogs, books, and random Wikipedia articles, and accumulating the skills to be able to be creative, and judge creativity, should become a habit for anyone in marketing.
It’s why many marketers I know have a website in their spare time. Or run a sideline business. Or paint, indulge in photography, or in one case, run a local radio show, for example.
If you’re stumped on how to become more creative, then a good place to start would be A User Guide to the Creative Mind – Dave Birss not only provides a great and concise read packed with ways to kickstart creativity and keep it going, but is also great at recommending further books and sources if you want to dive deeper. I’ve read it several times now – whenever I need a prompt to get my mind going again (Disclosure – Dave very kindly sent me a free copy via a Twitter competition if I remember correctly).
Other alternatives include the awesome Flickr page for ‘Interestingness in the last 7 days‘, or Stumbleupon.
Marketing:
Really all three pillars fall under marketing, but seeing as I’ve separated out Creativity, and will tackle [spoiler alert] Technology in a minute, Marketing in this case is really the part that aligns research, data and consumer demand, and turns it into something actually meaningful.
In an era of ‘big data’, and computers able to process and produce spreadsheets longer than the Bayeux Tapestry, it’s important to know what, how, and why you’re researching and measuring certain areas and to be able to make sure they’re the right ones to focus on and set as KPIs for example.
It’s where you use that data to produce the ever expanding 7Ps of marketing; Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Process, Physical evidence and People – and it means that the creativity is being directed in the right place, not in an area which makes no difference to consumers or businesses.
In terms of measurement, the dull-sounding but invaluable Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik focuses on clarifying and setting the right metrics for most of the early chapters, and I highly recommend it and Kaushik’s blog, Occam’s Razor. It’s also why I’m extremely pleased to work alongside web analyst and business optimisation genius Tim Stewart on a number of projects.
It’s also where knowledge and insight into maintaining customer relationships comes into effect, regardless of the technology being used. It’s much cheaper to keep an existing customer than attract a new one, and to use another well-worn truism, around 20% of your customers will generate around 80% of your revenue. So beyond identifying them, how do you encourage them to remain your customers?
Technology:
Tech is last on the list for a good reason. Although disruptive technology can hugely affect industries, on a day-to-day level, it’s about knowing what products and services exist to enable the marketing and creativity to flourish for a business. What methods are available for crowdsourcing and crowdfunding? How can you not only publish online but effectively marketing that across a myriad of social networks and communities, knowing which ones are relevant?
Do you know how to do at least basic research on opportunities by keyword volume and trending topics, or which networks are gaining popularity at a given time? Can you spot if an agency pitch is being based on relevant data and research, or some irrelevant numbers from a previous presentation which are actually meaningless to your customers?
And do you know how your analytics and reporting tools are setup and what they should be highlighting to you?
I’m not suggesting you should devote your life to learning to hand code a website or build your own 3D printer, but you should be comfortable with analytics, social media monitoring tools, RSS, open source, cloud computing and storage, basic HTML, and most importantly – if you were the only person left at your firm after the apocalypse, would you be able to publish something on your website to tell the world you’re still here?
If you’ve never touched the company website or the CMS that runs it, then you need to change that as soon as possible – grab someone this week to take you through the process.
Strategic generalist or tactical specialist?
Developing a decent standard across all three areas is a big challenge and one that takes a lot of time and effort. At a tactical level you’ll probably end up focusing on particular areas, and that’s fine, whether that’s SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing, Product Development or whether else is your main passion.
But as with anything, it’s the knowledge outside your main area which you combine to make something really special – and you need to cover all areas over time.
If you’re a technical SEO expert, then consider more sources on creativity and consumer behaviour/psychology – it’ll provide amazing ways to improve your keyword research or solve site issues.
If you’re in social media, then dig into analytics and technology, look at direct marketing or how ‘traditional’ marketing takes place in the real world. Spending an hour observing how shoppers browse a department store can lead to great insights into how social herds move (You could also look at Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, which is a great read).
And if you’re scared of technology – dive in. Plenty of senior marketing people have avoided creating a social network profile thus far or going near their own company website, but you can use a fake name and learn how to install an anonymous WordPress blog and get cracking.
You can buy a domain and hosting for less than the price of almost any big conference, and if you devote a handful of hours each week to it you’ll learn far more, too. You can run your own analytics to test and learn, create a Facebook page for it, and use Mailchimp to create a free email newsletter – in the space of an afternoon.
Get learning, hacking and testing:
With more material on the internet than was published in the hundreds of years preceding it, there’s no excuse to not improve your skills and become an effective Creative Marketing Technologist (the more English versions of ‘Creative Marketing Technology Manager or Head of Creative Marketing Technology don’t sound as cool I’m afraid!)
If you’re developing those skills, or already have them, and you’re interested in potential freelance or full-time work, then get in touch, as you’re the sort of person we’d like to work with. And if you get stuck, I should also mention we also offer training!